Finding A Political Home (On The Left)
Are you a mutant socialist? A podcast episode about finding and being in left spaces, with a special interlude to discuss a 80s classic TV show.
If you’re looking to find a political party, movement, or ideology into which you’ll fit like a piece of tailored clothing, good luck. The variability and complexity of human perspectives, experiences, preferences, and interests are too great to offer complete agreement. Even if you could try to smooth over disagreement in an attempt to enforce a lasting consensus, the would be stultifying, even totalitarian. But nonetheless, there are better and worse fits. And for a lot of leftists right now — and even some centrists — finding a welcome political home can be tricky.
Earlier this week, I joined Personalist Manifesto for a podcast special episode, Mutant Socialists Assemble! to talk about finding — or making — a home on the left, what that might look like, and what trade-offs it would involve. There’s a link to the episode below, a few paragraphs down.
I think trade-offs are healthy, just as a I think disagreement and tension and struggle are essential elements of politics, even when we might broadly agree on some policy or good or course of action. Thinking of classic defences of free speech, such as those offered by J.S. Mill and others, we can say that disagreement, both offering it to and accepting it from others, can help us to come away with a clearer and stronger sense of what we believe and why. It can also encourage us to change our mind when presented with valid reasons to do so.
In the era of digital media, it’s particularly tricky to disagree in productive ways. I don’t mean to say that everyone should adopt civility politics for its own sake. Disagreement can be prickly. That’s fine. But political discourse strategically designed to engage for the sake of engagement, often relying on strategies of inducing negative emotional responses and negative polarization, aren’t likely to help anyone refine anything. Indeed, they’re often designed to keep eyeballs glued to platforms to drive ad revenue or else they’re not designed at all, they’re mere expressions of aggression, frustration, or anger masquerading as “doing politics.” Some of it is strategic and inorganic, farmed from domestic or international actors pursuing their own goals. None of this is productive and in the long run it’s a recipe for institutional and democratic decline and collapse, with a high probability that what replaces those institutions and the democratic polity will be far worse.
I hope you’ll take some time to listen to this episode, which you can catch anywhere you get podcasts, including through the link just below. It’s a fun and, I hope, informative conversation. I enjoyed taking part in it and I think you’ll enjoy listening to it.
Thanks for your support! Oh, and please do feel free to…
As an unrepentant individualist who believes that people & societies thrive best when that society is socially cohesive, meaning it shares a foundational worldview with respect to rights and responsibilities, recognizing that there are no rights without responsibilities, I'm curious as to what distinguishes a "mutant" socialist from a "mutant" individualist?
Keeping in mind that Am I my brother's keeper? and Who is my neighbour? are biblical questions that pointedly made clear that even in an individualistic and conservative worldview, social responsibility can be just as foundational.
I also agree emphatically with the words of another poster below regarding a "social safety net that protects the vulnerable & creates opportunities for the less fortunate to be their best and contribute to the common wealth" and only quibble with the qualifier "strong". Certainly it needs to be strong in terms of societal support, but I suggest that the level of support, even though one could categorize it as "strong" should still leave an appropriate amount of room for individual responsibility where warranted, i.e. in competent, working age adults. Support for minors, seniors and the disabled should clearly be greater.
While I'm no slave to Ayn Rand's work, I certainly did enjoy it (yes, I was much younger), and found much to agree with.
So, does all that make me a mutant socialist, or a mutant individualistic capitalist?
I suspect maybe US is just protecting their own interests at the top, 'so-called' and socialism would lower their assets.
I don't think Mark Carney has any interest in socialism but doesn't disrupt what's been done. He seems to be a 'type of' corporate and interested in Capitalism.
Well, an investment banker who excels at trade negotiations wouldn't be interested in socialism.
I'm wondering who he takes care of? I can't tell his position on working Canadians but it seems good.
But it's not socialist. Yet, his cross implementation methods utilizing Canadian for projects might be verging on socialism?